by Chris Bunch
“Who is he?”
The woman shrugged. “One of the offworld mucketies.”
“So why’d these guys want him grabbed?”
“Hell if I know,” the woman said. “Blackmail, I guess.”
“You got any idea who we’re working for?”
“Yeh,” the woman said. “That’s why I went double on the price. Political types. The ones who’re doing the campaign right now.”
“But that don’t make sense,” the man behind the controls of the lim complained. “I thought this auzlan circus was hired out by them.”
“Nothin’ nobody does in politics ever makes sense,” the man crouched over Njangu’s unconscious body said. “How long we gotta be nannyin’ him?”
“There’ll be somebody come get him as soon as we get to the dropoff point.”
“With the other half of our credits, I hope.”
“You think I’m some kind of virgin?” the woman growled.
• • •
“Groundnuts, popcorn, candy as soft as your dreams, poppers, everything for the young and old,” Maev chanted, moving through the stands, eyes constantly moving.
An old man waved a bill at her, and she pitched him a bag of nuts, and bill and change went back and forth down the line.
There were other butchers working the crowd — a few real candy salesmen, more security.
• • •
The bear operator turned as the thin man entered his tiny booth, near one of the entrances. He had time to gape before the man’s blade went into his heart. The other operator had been waylaid earlier on the midway, his body dragged out of sight.
The man pushed the body under the console, examined the sensors. He’d come to the circus for eight nights running, watching only the robots, spending his days learning how to operate remote machinery.
This setup, he decided, pulling on the helmet that gave him perspective through the “bear’s” eyes, wasn’t that different from what he learned. He would have no trouble carrying out his mission.
He touched sensors, and a small screen showed him the two bears in their unnecessary cage, just offstage. One, then another, stirred as he moved the controls.
One stood, waved its arms, walked back and forth.
The man was ready.
• • •
Danfin Froude, in his Kelly makeup, looked longingly at Kekri Katun, who smiled. He came closer, and, expression filled with the world’s woes, started to take her hand, did a pratfall, rolled back to his feet.
Katun didn’t notice Ristori, who tumbled into view from nowhere, came up from behind, leering ostentatiously, eyebrows waggling insanely.
He started to touch her bottom, and she spun, caught him by his collar … actually the harness under his ragged clothes … and tossed him high up into the safety gravs.
Froude, looking even more unhappy, was slouched on the bench. Katun went to him, sat beside him, started stroking his hand.
Ristori sank down through the layered antigravs, crept back up on the pair.
This time, Froude moved first, grabbed Ristori, and they had a knockdown battle, hitting each other with fists, padded clubs, a huge ball, anything that came to hand.
Around them other clowns were bedeviling, and being bedeviled, by the other showgirls.
Kekri saw Ben Dill trot past, in his muscleman’s outfit, considered him speculatively, then saw Garvin looking at her from center ring. She slowly, deliberately, smiled at him, and licked her finger. Garvin looked hastily away, and Katun laughed to herself.
These were nice people, she thought. But they weren’t very efficient. Her control had said she would be searched, and so she’d taken nothing aboard Big Bertha. She’d used dusting powder, sprinkled here and there, as a giveaway, and found marks that confirmed her baggage had been searched.
This night she’d gone into the midway, as she’d been instructed, and been given a small, compact case by a man who approached her and whispered the code words she’d been given.
The case held a small, powerful com, capable of in-system communication. She wasn’t sure how useful it would be, but assumed she would be signaled at a certain time by the pickup team she’d been promised would be trailing the ship, and given instructions on what she was to report on, besides any information about the circus’s intent and mission she would be able to get from Garvin. There had to be a secret intention, since innocents would hardly have searched her gear.
Kekri Katun turned that part of her mind off, concentrated on cartwheeling and cheering for her champion, Froude.
At last Ristori was down, and Froude, after jumping up and down on his chest, picked up the tall woman, aided by a dropper he had hidden under his baggy coat, and carried her off in his arms, to cheers from the audience.
• • •
On the bridge of Big Bertha, a technician glanced at a screen, reacted. One of the tiny locators was moving steadily away, almost off the screen.
He bent over its controls, started tracking the locator, called for the watch officer.
“Have an ID on that?” the woman asked.
The tech keyed a sensor.
“Yes, ma’am. Yoshitaro.”
“Allât in a supporter! I better let the boss know … assuming that sneaky bastard isn’t doing something nobody’s supposed to know about.”
The officer went to another tech, had him key the emergency com that fed into Garvin’s tiny earpiece.
• • •
“Can he lift it? No one has ever been able to press a thousand kilos, and Mighty Ben is going to attempt it here, now, for your amazement,” the talker brayed. “Let’s cheer for him, wish for him, put all our energies behind Dill the Human Powerhouse.”
Dill, wearing pink leotards, a half shirt, and chrome rings around his biceps, leaned over, took a breath, made sure the droppers hidden inside the enormous weights were on, then heaved. He got a couple of centimeters off the ground before the weights smashed down. Again he tried, and again, the crowd moaning in sympathy.
At last, every muscle bulging, he heaved the weights aloft, staggered back and forth, then, turning the droppers off, got out from under.
The weights crashed down, and the noise from this side ring buried the yips from the risley act in center ring.
Dill was about to bow, move into the finale of his act, when his earpiece burped, said, “Post. Emergency!”
The talker gaped as Dill jumped out of the ring and went, at a dead run, toward one of the corridors into the ship, then he recovered and began improvising another spiel on the acrobats in the center ring bouncing each other about on their feet.
Other select I&R people suddenly quit their tasks or performance around the circus and went after Dill.
Security people throughout the ship stood by, waiting to find out what was going on.
• • •
Darod Montagna concentrated on staying on the back of her horses as the animals poured out of the ring, to thundering applause, wondering what the hell was happening.
She reflexively waved to the bear operator in his booth, a nice one who’d helped her curry some of the horses, a bit surprised to see him with his helmeted head in the open instead of glued to the screen in his booth. She was momentarily puzzled she got no return greeting, but guessed he was concentrating on the bears’ turn, which came next.
• • •
“And now, the man who’s brought you all here, the man of the hour, the week, the year, Dorn Fili, soon to be your next Premier,” Garvin shouted, and the workers in the stands were on their feet, cheering. He suddenly froze and cocked his head, eyes going wide as the transmission about Njangu came in.
Fili, beaming, waved to his campaign workers, let the cheers build.
• • •
The thin man touched sensors, and the robot that Njangu had named Li’l Doni got up, pulled his cage open, and ambled through the entrance, then dropped to his four paws, and started toward the center ring, where Garvin and Fili sto
od.
• • •
“My friends,” Fili said, and his voice rolled around the hold, “and you are my friends. Tonight we’re celebrating, maybe some say a bit in advance, but I say …”
• • •
High above, swinging back and forth, waiting for the acrobats’ second turn, Lir yawned, then saw the robot bear, moving at a run toward Garvin and the politician.
Something wasn’t right, and Lir was cursing that she couldn’t hide a gun in her skimpy tights. She dropped off the perch, fell, tucking, toward the safety gravs below, knowing she was far too late.
• • •
A little girl was looking through Maev’s tray, trying to decide what she wanted, when Maev saw Li’l Doni.
“Here, kid,” she said, pulling the tray’s sling off her neck. “Take everything and have fun.”
Gun in hand, she hurried back to the aisle, and ran down it, toward the circus floor.
• • •
“ … a little premature, but I’m confident that we’ll see victory, only a week distant, and — ”
The bear was ten meters away when Garvin, about to bow away and head for the emergency post, saw him. It came to its feet and shambled toward Fili, arms open for a crushing embrace.
Garvin’s hand slid into his coat, came out with a small pistol. He shot Li’l Doni twice in the head to no effect, then tackled the bear from the side, knocking it down.
• • •
Raf Aterton, the music director, heard the beginning screams and shots, cursed and grabbed a trumpet from a musician, and blasted into “Peace March.”
The other musicians goggled for an instant, then got it, and the ragged music swelled.
And everywhere on the ship the women and men of the circus went to full alert.
• • •
Li’l Doni rolled to its feet and went for Fili, who ran for a trapeze mast, found climbing rings, started up. Then Doni had him in its paws, and was pulling him down. Fili was screaming, and there were roustabouts there, with benches, poles, smashing at the robot.
• • •
Maev was behind the bears’ operators’ booth, pistol out. She snapshot, blowing most of the bear operator’s helmet and head off.
The skeletal man convulsed, fell dead.
• • •
Li’l Doni went suddenly limp and fell, almost on one of the roustabouts, and Fili dropped on top of him.
Garvin checked the robot, saw no signs of activity, pulled Fili to his feet, and made sure the politician’s throat mike was still live.
“Keep talking,” he shouted. “Keep them calm. We don’t need a panic.”
Fili, eyes wide, opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, nothing coming out.
• • •
Erik Penwyth, dragging on a white formal jacket over the dark pants he’d worn to Freron’s apartment, ran into the hold, clipping a mike to his throat.
“Clowns, clowns, clowns, we’ve got ‘em, and we don’t want them,” he shouted.
Behind him ran every clown in the circus, and behind them the tumblers. The clowns ran the length of the ring, then back, peeling off into the stands, the tumblers end-over-ending along the ring banks.
The audience was trying to see what had happened, if Fili was hurt, and finally his voice came back.
“Everything’s … fine,” he said, his voice somewhat squeaky, then steadying. “That was a little stunt that didn’t work out right … I guess I should’ve known I’m not cut out for the circus, but look at my friends around me, who are.”
His laughter sounded almost real, and the crowd settled back a little. A clown lifter zoomed toward Fili, and he was buried in joeys as two men muscled the Li’l Doni’s “corpse” into it, lifted away. Another lifter was bundling the corpse of the thin man into it, unnoticed.
“Clowns,” Penwyth said, as Aterton batted his baton and the “Peace March” died away. “I promised ‘em, you got ‘em. Take one or two home with you, please. Next we’ve got the high-wire artists, and artists they are, braver women and men than I surely am.”
A flyer launched herself out, was passed by another, and a ra’felan at each pole caught them, spun them, sent them back the way they came.
Lir, climbing up, grabbed a trapeze, and started swinging, each time higher, pulling herself into a bird’s nest, and the show was back to normal.
• • •
“I have them,” Boursier reported, her aksai banking high above the capital’s center. “Landing on the roof of a high-rise. Looks like an apartment building. They’re carrying a bundle, and there’s somebody waiting for them.
“They’re inside. The guard’s still on the roof, though.”
“Maintain patrol,” came the orders. “There’s a civvie lifter on the way with the alert team in it, blue-white, open top, who’ll get close and case things.”
• • •
The ship’s compartment was packed with I&R troops.
“All right,” Garvin said. “We’ll keep this short. Somebody … I don’t know if it’s the same somebody who tried to ice Fili or not … has just grabbed Njangu. We’ve got a location, will have details in a moment, and we’re going after him, right now.”
He looked around the room.
“For starters I want you, Ben, Monique, not you, Alikhan … no, wait, I do want you on this, Jill — we might need a medic.” He hesitated, seeing Darod’s eyes on him, didn’t want to, but knew better:
“You, Montagna, you’re in. And me. As for — ”
A speaker crackled.
“Boss, I’ve got that lifter with the alert team patched through.”
“Go ahead.”
• • •
The lifter went noisily down the street, well below roofline. Faces stared out from the apartment building as the drunks inside yahooed and toasted anyone in sight.
“Got Njangu,” one of the drunks, part of the normal standby I&R team, in the lifter reported. “Or his locator, anyway. The building’s sixty stories high, he’s down five from the top. Stationary, so I’d guess that’s where they want him to stay for a while.”
“Received,” Big Bertha’s com center sent back. “Take it up to five-zero, stand by for further orders. Chaka, if anyone from outside tries to interfere, take them out. Repeat, anyone.”
The mike clicked twice, and the lifter climbed away, toward the orbiting Nana boat.
• • •
“ ‘Kay,” Garvin said. “He’s close to the top of the building, and there’s a sentry. We’ll have to land on the roof, take that guard out, plus anyone who’s with him, and then — ”
“Excuse me,” a polite voice said, and Garvin wondered who the hell let Jiang Yuan Fong, a civilian, into the compartment.
“I’ve been listening, and if Mr. Yoshitaro is being held in a high-rise, as that transmission indicates, and you evidently plan to rescue him, rather than possibly alert that sentry on the roof, would it not be wiser to make the initial entry through, perhaps, one of the windows on the side of the building with someone who has certain acrobatic skills? Such as me, and perhaps one of the ra’felan?”
Garvin thought for an instant, then nodded.
“Good. Have you ever used a gun, Mr. Fong?”
“A few times I have found it necessary to defend my family, so yes.”
“Fine. Somebody issue him a blaster, and somebody grab the nearest octopus. We’ll deploy from one of our cargo lifters. Let’s move!”
• • •
The last elephant trumpeted out the Back Door, and the lights came up.
“All out and over,” Penwyth shouted, “and it’s a wonderful evening, and we’ve never had a better audience.”
The band was playing for the blowoff, and all the remaining butchers were working the crowd hard.
A little girl’s mother stopped an usher.
“Excuse?”
“Yeh,” the man said, then remembered his manners. “Sorry, I meant yes, ma’am?”<
br />
“One of your salesmen left Mara with her entire tray of sweetmeats, and told her to take whatever she wanted. But we can’t do that, and the woman never came back.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Why,” the usher said, “you’ve just been gifted with the entire tray.” He forced a smile down at the girl. “Remember our circus always.”
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said. “You’re wonderful, all of you. I hope nobody was hurt in that accident.”
“No, ma’am,” the usher said. “Everyone’s fine.”
The girl, eyes wider than any ra’felan’s, was borne away, and the security man, one hand close to the gun under his jacket, went back to watching the crowd.
• • •
The cargo lifter’s hatch was open, and the team climbed inside. The huge ra’felan swung in easily, found a seat next to Alikhan. The alien wore the Musth combat harness.
Garvin, buckling his fighting belt on, climbed in front.
“Haul it on out,” he ordered, and Running Bear nodded. The hatches closed, the upper hatch on Big Bertha opened, and the lifter sped toward the capital.
• • •
“The game might be getting interesting,” Chaka reported. “Another lifter, this one a posh sort of lim, came in on the roof, and the same guard greeted them.
“Two people out, went inside.”
Garvin turned down the lift’s speaker.
“You heard what the man said. That’s got to be either an interrogation team, or else they’re pickup for Njangu. So we’ll have to get in quick.”
“Three minutes out,” Running Bear said.
• • •
The cargo lifter orbited the high building below.
“ ‘Kay,” Chaka reported. “Stand by for transmit of what I’ve got on the building to your screen.”
“Got it,” Garvin said.
“Two lifters on the roof. Two drivers per vehicle, plus the sentry. Our man’s in the fourth apartment in — there’s a gap between units you can make out from here.”
“ ‘Kay.”
“Your plan, sir?”
Garvin saw, on one side of the building, through heavy glass that ran the height of the structure, emergency stairs.
“You stand by and take out the lifters and their crew when I give you the word. We’ll go in from the side, a story high so any noise we make doesn’t carry.”
